The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

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WIP - Map of Daenor

Hello! I've been admiring the maps on the forums for a while now and thought I'd throw my hand in by taking a hand-draw map that I did a few years ago and redoing it in GIMP. This map was done for a D&D Campaign I ran that had a Roman Empire inspiration with the action of the campaign set during the slow collapse of the Empire. Ultimately, I'd like to do maps entirely digitally, but for now I'll be stripping the coastline from the original map image. My current plan is to create an artistic rather than realistic map, mostly monochrome, in sepia tones echoing the current paper version along the lines of Darklingrisen's tutorial for GIMP.

Played around with outlining - took me a while to figure out that for concentric outlines you need to select the whitespace and shrink for each consecutive outline. For these images I did a 6 px/ 4 / 2 / 1 outline and a 4 px / 2 / 1. I like the second one better and think I'll use it.

Also, picked up a copy of StarRaven's brushes and have been having some fun with those, so hopefully the next map will have most of the terrain roughed in.